


scars

by novoaa1



Category: DCU
Genre: BAMF Harleen Quinzel, F/F, Harleen Quinzel Needs a Hug, IT'S GAY, POV Pamela Isley, Pamela Isley Loves Harleen Quinzel, Past Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, Past Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, Past Violence, Protective Pamela Isley, Scars, Sharing a Bed, Soft Girlfriends, Violence, and i am neither of those things, and smart people with brain cells, as in pam wants to smash joker's brains in, but what else is new right?, in the middle of the night, joker is a massive dick, just a lil drabble, like thoughts of violence, proofreading is for whiners, super valid stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24990943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: And the scars…the scars.They litter her ivory-pale flesh, leaving nary a square inch of skin unmarred.Ivy knows the stories that accompany a number of them, though not nearly enough to account for the sheer measure of brutality laid bare upon Harley’s alabaster skin.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 15
Kudos: 193





	scars

**Author's Note:**

> pulled this out of my ass, trying to get back into writing harlivy so i can get the ball rolling on my other story, you knwo the drill
> 
> let me know what u think?

The way Harley acts most of the time—drunk off of self-manufactured euphoria, charmed by broken and ghastly affairs, bouncing-off-the-walls ecstatic at the strangest of things—even Ivy will forget now and again the sheer measure of tragedy that trails behind her: lapping at her bloodied heels, clawing at the charred edges of her sanity (what precious little of it remains)… the kind of astringency that follows you day in and day out, making damn sure you never have the luxury of forgetting what everyone else around you inevitably will. 

It’s night like these, however, upon which Ivy can’t help but _notice_.

She’ll explain: Ivy and sleep don’t quite get along… at least, not in the traditional sense. (Much the same can be said for both Selina and Harley.)

For starters, she doesn’t quite require anywhere near the typical amount of rest recommended for the average human—five hours a night is more than enough, though it doesn’t do her any harm (by any stretch of the imagination) to sleep a full eight hours when she can.

On another (tangentially related) note, she’s restless, some nights. ( _Most_ nights.)

It’s rarely in a bad way (i.e. nightmares); rather, she’s just… twitchy. Fidgeting. _Awake_ , even despite her every attempt not to be. 

She’ll find herself rousing at ungodly hours of the night, gently peeling Harley’s dead weight off of her and creeping out of bed. She’ll brew some tea, watch trashy TV, tidy up the apartment… anything to keep her mind occupied, to prevent the pungent hyperactivity that simmers beneath her skin from swallowing her whole. 

But tonight… Well. 

Tonight, she wakes at 3:04 (according to the digital clock atop the nightstand). Silvery moonlight streams in through the tall single-slider window of the wall skirting Harley’s side of the bed; Harley had a tendency to squirm while she slept, making falling over the edge of the bed in the middle of the night a very real concern—thus, their queen-sized bed frame having been pressed up against the wall for as long as Ivy could reasonably recall. 

Harley also cherished the sight of the pale moon hovering amidst the clouds overhead as she drifted off into sleep, christening it her “second guardian angel” (after Ivy, of course), and really—who was Ivy to deny her anything?

In less than a minute, she’s managed to disentangle herself from Harley and wriggle out of bed—even despite the way the pale woman whines in her sleep at the loss of contact, and Ivy finds that that desperate sound alone is very near enough to shatter her formidable resolve.

She’s halfway to the bedroom door when she chances a glance behind her, and the sight that meets her has her heart crawling up into her throat, her body freezing mid-stride, her heartbeat thundering double-time beneath her ribcage. 

She finds herself turning on her heel before she can second guess the impulse, drawn by some invisible tether back to the bed they’ve long since called theirs. Harley looks so _small_ right now: her slender bleached-white figure engulfed in a mess of tangled sheets, a pair of tiny black cotton shorts sagging low beneath the graceful flare of her hips, her dip-dyed platinum locks sprawled wildly across the pillow.

Ivy doesn’t consciously will her plants to grow, nor to sprout up from betwixt the wooden floorboards at her feet; but sooner than she can blink, there’s a bank of blooming greenery composing itself into a bench-like seat behind her and she’s collapsing into it as if the very breath has been stolen from her lungs… and honestly, all things considered, she’s quite compelled to believe that that is very much what’s happened here. 

Harley shifts atop the mattress, then, rolling onto her back with a quiet sigh, and Ivy fears that she’s awoken her. 

A second later, she’s turning further onto her side, curling her knees up to her chest in a fetal position such that her naked back faces Ivy head-on, and she forgets her worry as the sight of it hits her like a sucker punch to the gut. 

It’s beautiful, of course— _she’s_ beautiful, as she always is. 

The elegant musculature shifting beneath her skin with every slight twitch and shiver, the graceful curve of her spine culminating in a darling pair of twin dimples just aloft the waistband of her shorts, the steady rise and fall of her ribcage contracting on every languorous exhale. 

And the scars… _the scars_.

They litter her ivory-pale flesh, leaving nary a square inch of skin unmarred. 

Ivy knows the stories that accompany a number of them, though not nearly enough to account for the sheer measure of brutality laid bare upon Harley’s alabaster skin. 

An untidy criss-crossing of thin pale-white lines all up and down her back; some ragged, some clean-cut—the marks of Joker’s whip, the bite of his wooden cane. 

Various half-moon-shaped indentations (all in clusters of four) over the left hip, with more to match on the right. 

The raised pale-pink scar of a shakily-carved ‘J’ in the flesh beneath her left shoulder blade; a bullet hole (courtesy of Joker) just aloft her right hip that left Harley gushing blood in Ivy’s arms on a freezing Tuesday night in the City, whimpering frail “goodbye”s between choked breaths—each one like a molten blade to the heart, shattering Ivy from the inside out in a way little else ever could.

(Not for the first time tonight, Ivy quells her mounting rage with graphic images of the Joker’s suffering: crumpling to his hands and knees, coughing up mouthfuls of blood and poison at her feet; launching him off the tallest skyscraper in Gotham, watching him land head-first upon the unforgiving pavement two hundred stories below; sobbing to Harley for mercy on his knees, just seconds before she takes her trusty bat to his skull and spatters the floor with his brains… )

And those aren’t even the half it. That scars, that is. (But oh, how Ivy wishes they were.)

Beams of silvery moonlight fall across the older ghost-white scars in a way such that they almost seem to glow as Ivy watches… such that she can almost find them beautiful, were it not for the abhorrent nature of circumstance that gave them to her. 

She’s small—so small, yet strong beyond words could say. 

(The scars—no matter how their bloodied stories threaten to splinter Ivy altogether—are more than evidence enough of that.)

She doesn’t need Ivy’s protection; she never has. (Ivy’s never been delusional enough to think any different.)

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it anyhow—now, and forever. 

_Always_. 

✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵ ✵

**Author's Note:**

> YOU KNOW WHAT THE ENDING REMINDED ME OF? THAT SONG FROM TARZAN THAT I WAS OBSESSED WITH TWO YEARS AGO "YOU'LL BE IN MY HEART" BY PHIL COLLINS
> 
> there's this one lyric that goes "for one so small, you seem so strong / my arms will hold you, keep you safe and warm" and like DUUUUUUUUDE
> 
> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/) or just search @ultralightdumbass to come talk to me there!)


End file.
